Creative Mural Landscapes, Building Communities and Resilience in Uruguayan Tourism

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to analyze open-air mural painting museums in Uruguay as a model of tourism resilience, sustainability, and social development, being one of the first Latin American examples to demonstrate the ability to adapt to change and overcome external shocks through the creation of creative community landscapes. To do so, documentary research, photographic documentation, and field research were carried out in order to explore the opportunities of mural tourism in small locations in Uruguay. In the nineties, a new type of artistic production was created in Uruguay, initially characterized by its decentralization. This was somewhat of a revolution in the muralist field as, until this time, Montevideo had been the center of cultural tradition, considered the intellectual focus of the country, and had concentrated the largest number of murals. For this reason, the birth of new muralist nuclei in small rural enclaves, which traditionally had not had much access to culture and no link to muralism, is remarkable. Secondly, this new movement sought to diversify economic activity given the consequences of the severe economic crises and environmental catastrophes that were and are still prevalent in these areas. Therefore, these new creative landscapes were conceived as important examples of the resilience of cultural tourist destinations. The results emphasize that, until now, the idea of giving muralism a new use as a tool for local economic development had not been envisaged with reference to mural art in Uruguay. This new rethinking has given rise to the so-called Regionalization Processes of Uruguayan wall production. The most relevant cases are those developed in the municipalities of San Gregorio de Polanco (1993), Rosario (1994), and Pan de Azúcar (1998).

Street art and creative place-making: urban tourism regeneration in Toronto, Canada

“…Secondary data sources such as municipal reports, maps, videos, websites, photographs and online news articles (Knoblauch & Schettler, 2012; Thanh & Kirova, 2018) contributed to the analysis of themes. These were inspected alongside field research (Martinez-Carazo et al , 2021) that consisted of observations, photographic research and informal interviews. There were three main themes that emerged that demonstrate that StART coincides with the processes of creative place-making.…”

From Streets to Silos: Urban Art Forms in Local Rural Government and the Challenge of Regional Development

“…Public muralism attracts the interest of public cultural policy agencies because it appeals to a range of common policy objectives. By beautifying abandoned or under-maintained buildings and providing local communities with a visual expression of their collective identity, public murals hold the promise of regenerating public spaces, raising community pride and increasing liveability and the wellbeing of the communities that live around them (Gunn, 2020;Martinez-Carazo et al, 2021;Morris & Cant, 2004;Robinson, 2018;Thompson & Day, 2020). These artistic interventions in place, or acts of 'creative placemaking' (Forte & De Paola, 2019, p. 1;Markusen & Gadwa, 2010, p. 3), are broadly positioned as regenerative strategies which positively contribute to the built environment and a community's public space, particularly in physically degraded and socially disadvantaged areas (Forte & De Paola, 2019).…”

Intelligent Restoration Technology of Mural Digital Image Based on Machine Learning Algorithm

“…With the passage of time, mural images are affected by natural factors, such as wind and sand erosion and natural decolorization, which will cause varying degrees of damage, and even lead to the gradual disappearance of the image [5]. With the rapid development of computer technology and information technology, at this stage, China has studied many image restoration technologies for mural image processing, such as wavelet coefficient image denoising technology and image sample block completion algorithm, which is of great significance for mural image restoration [6]. However, the construction cost of most mural image restoration technologies is high, and the effect in image conversion and structure decomposition is still poor [7].…”